One of the problems in the electrical connector industry involves the detection of defective contacts or terminals when mounted within or inserted into a connector housing. This is particularly true with female or receptacle terminals within a connector housing which are adapted to receive pin or male terminals. This problem is becoming increasingly prevalent due to the ever-increasing miniaturization of electrical connectors and the desire for high density connector systems.
A receptacle terminal need not be badly damaged in order to be defective. The terminal is designed for establishing a solid interconnection with the pin terminal, and the viability of this interconnection often can be judged by the withdrawal force necessary to pull the pin terminal out of the receptacle terminal.
Although a receptacle terminal literally can be crushed during tooling processes in fabricating a connector, there are a variety of damages to the terminal which may occur at various phases or steps in processing the terminal and/or inserting the terminal into a respective connector housing. A terminal may not be symmetrical. In other words, rather than literally crushing a terminal during manufacture, the terminal simply may be distorted. Not only could such a distortion interfere with the insertion tooling at the manufacturing end of the connector, but the distortion could prevent establishing a solid interconnection with a pin terminal at the user end.
Distortion or major damage to such terminals can occur at various points in the manufacturing process. For instance, most such terminals are stamped and formed metal members, and distortion can occur during a stamping process. The plating process also has a potential to distort contact symmetry. Terminal reeling may also be a potential problem area. Of course, random handling after plating is a problem area in distorting contacts. Lastly, machine jamming itself in inserting the terminals into a connector housing literally can crush a miniature terminal.
Although there are a variety of sophisticated procedures to detect damaged or distorted terminals, particularly during manufacturing processes, there is a definite need for a simple fixture or tool which can be used to test an assembled connector or connector subassembly either at the manufacturing or the user ends, and which can operate on simple principals.
This invention is directed to providing such a fixture or tool which is extremely simple and operates on the basics of the withdrawal force of a male or pin terminal from a female or receptacle terminal.